To introduce new players quickly, is there a better + shorter setting description than this one?
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/BladesInTheDark
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/BladesInTheDark
To introduce new players quickly, is there a better + shorter setting description than this one?
To introduce new players quickly, is there a better + shorter setting description than this one?
This actually seems helpful for explaining things to my players and we’re 7 sessions into our game. 🙂
I guess it beats making them read the book. I’m doing a house con this month and I’d feel wrong handing out more than a page.
Here’s a brief spotlight I wrote abut the game. Is this the kind of into you’re looking for? Or were you looking for more on the setting itself?
docs.google.com – System Spotlight: Blades in the Dark
I was more looking for setting, yeah. Systems you can learn as you go, but I feel like the setting is both different and specific enough that it justifies prior explanation.
So, the setting is kind of tricky, because different games need different amounts of it. The bare bones of it are along the lines of,
You live in a world with no sun, in the teeming city of Duskvol, where crime and corruption rule on high and down low. The city is haunted by ghosts. Outside the city is SUPER haunted by ghosts; that’s why you’ve got a lightning barrier. Oh also there are demons and they are terrifying sanity-sucking things.
…that’s a LOT of the setting right there (and it’s a flexible setting, so you make up a bunch of the actual details as you go).
Now, there’s a ton more detail than that, but it depends entirely on what your group is focusing on. A Weird group should know about the Spirit Wardens, where a group of straightforward Shadows or Bravos maybe doesn’t much care at the start. Some groups may eat up ethnic and geopolitical tensions; others can go a whole campaign without knowing what a Sevrosi is. Some groups will care deeply about Ironhook and the Deathlands; others might be all about gang wars in Crow’s Foot.
Blades isn’t a game with a few major elements creating the setting. Instead, it’s got dozens of setting elements, each just a few paragraphs long. The way to handle it is to start big, macro-scale, and zoom gradually in to your particular arena. (“What kind of crew are you? What kind of reputation do you have? What quarter of Doskvol are you in? Who are your allies? OK, now I can tell you a little bit about the game…”)
(Another option, which I’ve also done, is for the GM to choose on their own what “slice” of Doskvol to set their game in, and then brief the players just on that. Works fine.)
Point is, I don’t think you’ll find a setting-summary that covers all of Doskvol. Doskvol is a setting of dark niches, brewing storms, and unique opportunities. You can’t really summarize all of them in a brief document. You need to either skim a long list and see what grabs your attention, or else narrow it down to something manageable.